I am grabbed away
Gulping down the rising fear
I feel myself slip from your grip
The bubbling anxiety
And the pain in your trembling voice
Makes me call out
My bag Mama
Pick up my bag for me
I am lead along with others like cattle
In a line
Away from you
The only arms I have ever known
But I don't look to see where we are going
I look at my blue trainers
As though I am seeing them on my feet for the first time
My feet are moving and I wonder if my brain is sending the signals correctly
Because I don't want to leave you
I am squeezed into a truck
That jostles with the heaviness of the situation
My hands slip into my pocket
And I wish that there would be such a pocket where I could not only hide my hands
But also myself
In it I feel the teeths of the wooden comb
The one that I took from papa
I look around at the faces
And they mirror mine
I recognise uncle Suleiman
And Hussein from the shop
I can't see Fahima
It's just men
I dig the comb into the tips of my fingers
Liking the pressure
Because it keeps my mind from drifting to nosense
I did not know that tomorrow I would lay down
Outside beneath the open sky
In a row with İbrahimoviç and several others
Our faces pressed against the earth
That bullets would rain down
And my back would burn
Quickly turning my legs numb
Distantly I would hear the roar
Of a Serbian soldier
"Are there any survivors?"
Someone would cry out instantly
"I am alive, please **** me!"
He pleaded and I was mute
But we both got what we wanted
I do not know how long I lay in that field
Then another and another
I lay with hundreds of others
But years later
Mama would be called
To see my blue trainers
And Papa's comb
To say that I was hers